Men Don't Cry
by A.NERD.NAMED.ABBEY
Summary: ONESHOT. I didn't just lose a brother, I lost my best friend. George is having trouble coping.


**A/N**: I started to cry while writing this. Thanks Lilly for helping me dry those tears . . . And thanks to Anne Marie. They are quite inspiring. This is my first one shot. Hope you enjoy it. Please review.

**Disclaimer**: J.K. Rowling's characters. My idea. Sort of.

Men Don't Cry

Fred. Oh, God. Fred. _Where is he?_

"FRED! GET OVER HERE YOU SMELLY HIPPOGRIFF!" But he wouldn't answer me. "Fred! C'mon stop messing with me! You know you're being completely mad!"

"Fred?" I called to him, over and over. He was only being stubborn. I couldn't keep yelling much longer, but he had to be out there. He just had to be . . .

— – — – —

"George. George. Come here. George." I tried to yell to him. I tried so hard. But He had drained me of all my strength. Oh no. Voldemort. Where had he gone?

Ginny. Was she all right?

"Keep her safe, Georgie. Oh, God. Keep her safe. Keep her safe . . ."

Somone must have heard me. There was a Pop! And in front of me stood a Death Eater.

I don't remember it happening. One minute I was spread out on the ground, my face scratched from trying to fight with Bellatrix, before Neville took over, my head was aching. The next minute I was floating, painless, weightless. I passed by all of the Order. Crumpled bodies were laying everywhere, absolutely everywhere. I saw myself.

Then I saw George.

He was crying out for me. Telling me to stop pretending, only I wasn't pretending, I would never see these people again. And I loved each and everyone of them.

Tears began to form in the corners of my eyes. I didn't try to stem the flow. I wasn't a man anymore.

— – — – —

I was still screaming out for Fred, it probably didn't qualify as screaming, my voice had gone so hoarse, when I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw an image. It was a ghost. "Please stay with me." I tried to say, but I had no voice left, so the ghost moved on, leaving me all alone.

All alone. Where no one could see me.

I felt something cool slip down my cheek and I realized . . . that I was crying. I, George Weasley was crying. After ten years of being a manly man.

But you can't blame me. I didn't just lose a brother, I lost my best friend.

— — – — —

Harry and my mom were sitting in the kitchen, her eyes were puffy and red, they had been for days. Weeks even.

Fred. I had never loved someone so much. Instead of saying things were like peanut butter and jelly, or cooking and house elves, people said "those go together like Fred and George." But now nothing went with me. I had lost my peanut butter and my house elf.

"George, will you and Fred. Oh no! Fred. God, I can't do it. I can't do it . . ." She trailed off and crumpled on the table, softly crying for him.

"Mrs. Weasley," Harry gently probed, sounding close to tears himself. "What did you want George to do? He and I will be able to handle it."

"No, no. I can do it. Harry, why don't you go play quidditch with Ron? George, dear, you should go think up some new Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Okay?" She asked us while battling what sounded like an enormous cold, but what was really grief.

Harry nodded and walked outside to where the rest of my family was half-heartedly throwing a quaffle around. Ginny was angry, though. She was playing more aggressively than she does at Hogwarts.

I walked upstairs intending to have a silly inspiration, but when I reached the room that I once shared, I couldn't think of a single idea. I needed my right hand back.

— — – — —

There was a hard knock, which woke me up from a deep, dreamless sleep. "George! Someone's here to see you." My mom called.

I stood up and opened the door just as she was going to knock again. She lowered her hand and moved aside to let me see who was standing behind her.

Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson stood there staring at me with puffy eyes until Katie threw herself at me.

"Oh, George!" She crowed in my ear. "George, I'm so sorry. He loved you."

I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there, like a limp noodle. Katie slowly backed away from me, and Angelina walked up and said, "George. Where you with him . . . when it . . . when it happened?"

I shook my head as she looked up from the floor.

"Oh. Okay," She said, sounding devastated.

Katie took her hand and squeezed it before letting go. Then she walked up and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "George, whatever happened wasn't your fault. Listen to me," She said the last bit fiercely and grabbed my chin to look at her. "You have to go on living, George. None of this is your fault. He knew what he was getting into. You have to move on, but never forget. Never forget him."

I knew I was crying when she looked at me with a sadness that was unbearable to see in her eyes. She would never know how much those few sentences meant to me.

— — – — —

The funeral. It had a sense of finality. The last time anyone would see Fred, unless they glanced my way. That would be the hardest part for me. Getting up every morning and seeing him in the mirror.

Everyone we had ever known was there.

I stood up to give the speech, and everyone started to cry before I had even said anything.

"Fred and I were trouble-makers. If there was a rule made, we were there to break it." I started my speech with lots of sniffing amidst the words. I saw Lee Jordan in the back, his dreadlocked head buried in a hanky. "I'll never forget the time Ron absolutely begged us to go and pick up Harry from his wretched muggle place of stay. We snuck out in my dad's old junker. The muggle dad, a lardy beast he was, fell out of the window of Harry's bedroom. But I'll never be able to laugh with Fred again. No one will.

"He took part in a dangerous task to bring about the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Fred knew going into this that his life was at stake, but he didn't care. He wanted the world to be a better place for him to live in. A better place for everyone to live in. Some may call it insanity, others may call it ambition, but I choose to call it Fred, my brother, my twin, my best friend. A man worthy of more than a toast. So here's to you, Fred. Here's to you."

I walked down from the platform where he laid, tears in my eyes, a rip in my heart.

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**A/N**: I'm a sapoid. Sorry 'bout that, my friend and I were having a case of the melancholies. Review it please, and tell me what you think.


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